


Love Spells

by FeelsForBreakfast



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 07:31:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8392708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeelsForBreakfast/pseuds/FeelsForBreakfast
Summary: It doesn’t start with a kiss. Or a punch. Neither of those. It begins with a look, lingered, held.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alpha_exodus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpha_exodus/gifts).



> This is a (MUCH BELATED) birthday present for the lovely Allie Alpha-exodus to whom I owe so much !!! Thank you so much for being all that you are in my life, my eternal partner in angst !!!
> 
> cw: discussions of improper consent, sex, ambiguous shit lol

The premise: 

The first time they fuck is terrible. Their bodies are not made for each other and Draco gives nothing, doesn’t seem to want to kiss him, will barely touch him. Harry is afraid to press against Draco’s skin because he's half terrified it will peel away like the film on old milk.

When Harry slides that note into Draco’s bag he doesn’t think Draco will agree to meet him a second time, but he supposes they both have their reasons.

The war ends with a long sleep, Harry curled up in Sirius’ old bedroom for days until he can manage solid food and doesn’t night-sweat the sheets so damp.

He’s not sure whether he’s hallucinating Draco or dreaming him in this muddy fever vision of an unforgiving boy. The dream is always the same. Draco is lying with him in bed, the gray sheets stretching on for ages, their hands too far apart to reach. His eyes are closed.

 

How it happened:

It’s not hard work to move into the crook of your enemy's thumb and stay there for months waiting for him to pinch you into dust. It's so easy. Nothing will ever be that easy again, Harry is sure.

 

More Clearly:

It doesn’t start with a kiss. Or a punch. Neither of those. It begins with a look, lingered, held.

It’s November and Harry suspects him and that’s why he’s looking at him in the first place. The plan is a bad plan.

 

The plan:

1\. Get into his space  
2\. Learn him  
3\. Scare him  
4\. Try to find one thing you can put your arms around and clasp your hands together on the other side, holding it shut

 

How the plan really works:

1\. Follow him around until his footsteps sound like your own  
2\. Watch his shadow until it seems familiar enough to taste  
3\. Say his name over and over until it feels like the only thing you know  
4\. Get caught one night in the basement  
5\. Be so afraid  
6\. Do the worst thing you can think of

 

The second worst thing you can think of:

Insinuate that you watch him. That you are wondering if he sleeps at all.

 

The Worst thing you can think of:

Insinuate that you are curious about his skin, that you want to know if it will peel off like the film on old milk.

 

Never ask a boy about his skin.

 

The Sordid Details:

Draco does not know how to kiss but this is not immediately obvious. He leaves his mouth on Harry’s neck like a pot simmering on a hob, until the frigid month of January when Harry takes his chin and tells him with his eyes that they’re going to kiss, Merlin, they’re going to fucking kiss, okay?

And Draco looks terrified and he holds Harry’s waist in his hands. “I’ve never really done it before.”

 

Teaching a Boy to Kiss:

1\. Don’t do it.  
2\. If you teach a boy to kiss you begin to think on some dark membrane level that the boy is yours.  
3\. That is always the first mistake. 

 

Love Potions:

With Draco’s body pressed against him Harry thinks about Tom Riddle’s mother, sick enough with love that she’d commit sins for it. He imagines her brewing love potion and thinking it could save her, red handed as she drugs the only one she loves.

Harry doesn’t understand how Merope could think that boy could love her, her drugged and fooled lover, how she could imagine that when she stopped poisoning him he would stay with her. He is glad that Dumbledore doesn’t have that memory to place into his hands, the one where Tom’s father finds out and leaves. Truthfully, he can picture it well enough.

He touches Draco’s hair and wonders if he loved him, if it would feel better.

 

Not Loving an Evil Boy:

It’s not that Harry doesn’t know what Draco’s done. It’s not like that at all. He knows, that’s the whole thing. On the nights they fuck they don’t speak about it, don’t say anything that sounds like it could be a declaration, like an argument, like a secret.

The first four times Harry looks for clues. He waits for Draco to slip and tell him that he bought the necklace that sent Katie Bell flying in the air, that he’s going to get the mark, that he hates everything that Harry stands for.

There is something in wondering if your not-lover is going to murder you.

 

One Secret:

“Mother sent me chocolates, would you like one?”  
It's not the sweetest thing that has ever touched his lips, but it's still so sweet.

 

Love Potions:

Only in the last moments before he goes to sleep does he wonder if Merope Gaunt knew her lover would leave her, if she knew how that would feel.

He is sure, somehow, that she deluded herself into thinking that by the end the potion was real love, that once grown they would be the same thing, two twin stalks twirling up together.

 

Dying:

In the forest, when Draco’s mother leans down to ask if he is safe, Harry can see her son in the curve of her mouth and the almond shape of her eyes.

Your son whimpers in his sleep, he tells her, and I wish I didn’t know that. I wish I knew what song he played when he tapped his fingers like that on my stomach.

He’s safe, he tells her instead. 

He wonders if he’d told her the other thing, if he would be dead for real.

 

An Unexpected Caveat:

For a long time, Draco never fucks him like he hates him. He had wanted that, he thinks, to be fucked like a horrible thing, to scrape darkness on the way down. Draco fucks him like it’s a job, like he’s trying to do something right and perfectly, like he’s performing.

“Is this what you do with everyone?” Harry asks, laying beside him.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

 

After a Long Pause:

“It’s just you.”

“You’re only fucking me, or you only fuck me like this.”

 

Another Long Pause:

“Mmm. Both.”

 

Love Potions:

Maybe finally, Merope loved him enough to let him go. And yet, Harry doesn’t think that’s how love works, not really. Love is a closed fist.

 

A Full and Sordid Description:

They exchanged notes and that is how Harry knows exactly how many times it happened. He wishes he could only estimate, that he didn’t stare at the 15 pieces of paper he saved and know that they switched off, that somewhere Draco has 15 mirroring pieces of the same.

 

Love Spells:

Sometimes Harry wonders if he’s used all his love up. He worries that the curse that split him and killed his mother destroyed his love too, used it up and burned it into dust.

He worries that his mother’s protection is the only love he’ll ever have, the only love that can touch him, the only love that will ever bracket his whole soul.

He can’t imagine that this is why she died for him, that she wanted him to be like this. He does not know where the better love is hiding; he has been searching too long for Draco Malfoy.

 

Horror:

One time, they don’t even take their clothes off. Harry arrives in the empty classroom and Draco is sitting there dead eyed, his legs dangling off the side of the long table. His arms hang down too far, Harry thinks, his mouth is too much like a wound. Harry sits behind him for an hour, his chin on his shoulder, trying to catch his breath.

That night, Draco was warmer than Harry remembers him ever being naked. He was quiet and small. Harry couldn’t imagine what he was thinking, thought it must be very bad, evil even.

Harry was thinking about where Draco goes when he disappears from the Marauders map, about how to get there.

Harry was thinking that he knows what Draco smells like, that this will be something he will always know.

 

Things Harry wishes he didn’t know he’d said on mornings when he is still almost dreaming:

“Can you hold me tighter? Crack my ribs if you want.”

 

Love Potions:

They only do it once, because it’s terrifying.

The chocolates are open on the table between them as they sit cross legged on its top. It had been a roundabout kind of suggestion initially, but they had both wanted it, horribly.

“Twelve hours?”

“That’s what the box says.”

“Someone will miss us.”

“Will they?”

 

It’s disgusting  
how much he wants him  
after he has that chocolate lie in his mouth:

 

 

That night they fuck clumsily for the first time, Harry remembering all the things he ever thought were beautiful about Draco. His hair shines in the light and he has angel eyes, storm gray and soft, and he’s looking at Harry like he’s going to save him.

Draco is never this fumbling with him.

While it’s happening, it never occurs to either of them that it’s the potion. It feels hyper real, saturated and reeking. Harry imagines he can see every pore of Draco’s skin, every vein pushing up against skin, every healed over scar. It’s like they’ve always felt like this, like it will always feel like this.

Draco is the one who says the horrible words first, trembling and like a mantra and even later, when the potion wears off and Harry is sick with embarrassment, he feels like maybe they both meant them.

The next morning Harry realizes they’ve been touching each other like they’re afraid of catching something this whole time. Even in the aftermath he can remember the eager movement of Draco’s body, the eagerness of his mouth, the grin on his face as Harry kissed him far too gently.

 

I Love You So Much:

Sometimes Harry worries that it was less the love potion and more of an excuse to not feel ashamed, just once.

 

Telling Yourself the Truth:

Harry knows it was a love potion, can remember the chemical tang and the full body rush, but when they’re lost out in the woods the next year, it’s his favorite fantasy.

 

In dreams:

Harry wants to know how Draco would kiss him now, in this humid summer heat after all the bad people have died. He thinks it would be fumbling, that it would feel like true love or salvation. He knows that nothing real is like that. He imagines it a million times.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed, please let me know what you liked in a comment! If there was something you weren't sure about, feel free to leave constructive criticism! <3
> 
> Url is drarrytrash if u want to hang :)


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